How Your Tax Money Funds Media Groupthink

One way to measure media groupthink is to find out which papers journalists are reading.

And for the second year in a row, the most widely read newspaper by the BBC staff is The Guardian, a left-wing paper with a declining print circulation and a regular contender for HonestReporting’s Dishonest Reporting Awards. Heh. That sentence also describes the BBC.

The Commentator filed a Freedom of Information request to find out how much the publicly funded BBC spends on newspapers.

The news comes despite the continuing decline of the Guardian newspaper circulation amongst the general public. The paper, which openly declares its Left-wing editorial line, is one of the least read outlets in the United Kingdom, chalking up around 215,000 sales per day in 2012, compared with the Daily Telegraph’s 518,000.

Despite these statistics, the BBC continues to purchase more copies of The Guardian (68,307 copies) than both the Telegraph (57,763) and The Times (59,490) and manages to pick up 50,398 copies of The Independent over the course of a year, a paper which registered an average of just 75,802 sales per day so far this year, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

The Commentator further questions why the Beeb increased its spending on newspapers by 17 percent when most UK papers continue to freely provide their content online.

Indeed, while The Guardian’s print circulation is indeed tumbling, the paper’s real influence comes from its online presence. Last year, it was the third most-read online paper in the world — 38,931,000 unique visitors, to be precise. (I’d like to know what percentage of the web site’s readers are from the UK.)

It’s old news that The Guardian and BBC are like-minded and out of touch with the British mainstream. But the Beeb’s also out of touch with the rest of the online world. If nearly 39 million Guardian fans are smart enough to read online for free, why can’t the BBC tighten its belt like the rest of us?

The Balen Report is hidden under the wraps of the Freedom of Information Act exemption. If information is “”sensitive”” then that is good reason to withhold the information. So much for British democracy

Most public institutions such as libraries always carry the Guardian and the sister Sunday paper the Observer. I believe you will find most people look to the Guardian to seek public sevice employment and opportunites. The BBC also advertises greatly with this prejudiced rag.
The left wing BBC is renowned for its open bias against anything and everything which runs in opposition to its communist style dogma. It is wholly protected by the establishment, which in the main is also very anti Israel.
This morning’s TV interviewed a spokesperson at Dover docks who defended immigration and cheap labour and spoke against Ukip. no opposition voices were heard. Typical BBC attitude.

Dear Sirs
I do not like the Guardian for its left leaning attitudes but we do have a free press and they are entiled to an opion as painful as it is to us.
Looking at the numbers 68307 for the year this is approx 187 copies per day to the BBC This is not that many considering how many offices they have around the UK.

It is true that some staff at the BBC maybe in tune with the Guardian. Again it is a pain for us but it is no worse than Ha Aretz which I think sometimes does more damage. However it is more likley that the correspondants are just lazy and write what is easier for them rather than checking into the full story. ( Providing it is “On Message”).